At Lhasa's oldest and most important temple, the Jokhang or House of the Buddha, built around 642, there is a photograph of the current Panchen Lama, the second-highest ranking lama after the Dalai Lama.

It is actually the photograph of Gyancain Norbu, the boy chosen by the Chinese government in a controversial move to replace the nominee of the Dalai Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who has since then vanished from public eye in Tibet.

In the bustling markets outside temples in Lhasa, there are no photographs of the Dalai Lama, unlike markets in Nepal and India where the Tibetan diaspora live.

In their household shrines or prayer rooms, Tibetans abroad keep photographs of the Dalai Lama before which they burn incense, light butter lamps and make offerings.

But household shrines in Tibet are bereft of images of the popular red-robe-clad figure after China dubbed the Dalai Lama a separatist. The Government Information Office in Tibet issues booklets projecting China's view of the Dalai Lama and his rule.

They project a horrendous image of a pitiless feudal system where power and money remained concentrated in the hands of only five percent while the remaining were reduced to serfs and slaves.

The pamphlets describe graphically how serfs would be punished: have their eyes gouged out, legs hamstrung, tongues cut out, or hands severed, hurled from a cliff, drowned or otherwise killed.

They also describe how each Dalai Lama had two money-lending agencies that lent money at an exorbitant rate of interest to bleed the people dry.

However, while the campaign has been effective in effacing the Dalai Lama's image from Lhasa's public life, it is questionable whether it has succeeded in uprooting the exile from Tibetan hearts.

Every day, more than 1,500 Tibetans undertake a tour of the Potala Palace. And each day, hundreds of 'khadas' - traditional silk scarves - pile up as offering before the empty throne of the Dalai Lama at the conference hall, once known as the Chamber of Golden Radiance.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)